Progressives ‘must share the blame’ for climate inaction

“Progressive forces” must share responsibility for Australia’s lack of action on climate change, Labor’s Pat Conroy has claimed.

Labor frontbencher Pat Conroy will accuse some in the ­environmental movement of “making perfect the enemy of the good” at Australian National University in Canberra today. Picture: Supplied

“Progressive forces” must share responsibility for Australia’s lack of action on climate change, Labor frontbencher Pat Conroy will claim, declaring the Greens’ ­decision to block Kevin Rudd’s emission trading scheme had increased carbon pollution by 218 million tonnes over a decade.

The opposition assistant climate change spokesman will on Monday hit out at the Greens on the 10-year anniversary of the left-wing party joining the ­Coalition in voting against the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

In a speech to the Australian National University in Canberra, he will also reflect on Labor’s blunders in pursuing a price on carbon and accuse some in the ­environmental movement of “making perfect the enemy of the good”.

“Progressive forces must also accept some share of responsibility,” Mr Conroy will say, ­according to a draft copy of the speech.

“All of those involved in the political failure of the last decade need to engage in honest reflection. It’s not comfortable.

“Much of the political momentum (former prime minister Tony) Abbott gained on carbon pricing had its origins in that 2009 Senate vote on the CPRS.”

Mr Conroy will say that Bob Brown’s anti-Adani convoy — which Labor argues shifted support to the Coalition in the 2019 election — and the CPRS were examples of the Greens using ­climate change as a political ­weapon.

“The Greens are a party which seeks to increase its electoral support from progressive voters by attacking Labor on climate change,” Mr Conroy will say.

“The question for the Greens is whether they place a higher priority on winning votes at Labor’s expense than on supporting ­action to reduce Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions.”

Mr Conroy will say Australia’s 2020 emissions under the CPRS would have been 459 million ­tonnes, compared with the projected figure of 540 million tonnes under Scott Morrison’s policies.

“That is 81 million tonnes lower than now projected, or more than all of the fugitive emissions from the Australian coalmining and oil and gas production industries combined,” Mr Conroy will say.

“That means that by voting to defeat the CPRS, the Greens voted against cumulative ­additional emissions reductions of 218 million tonnes between 2010 and 2020 — emissions reductions which would have come on top of the actual outcomes we have seen over the last decade in Australia.

“And by voting against the CPRS, the Greens also voted against a mechanism putting Australia’s emissions on a downward trajectory beyond 2020.”

Mr Conroy will dismantle the Greens’ argument that the CPRS was flawed because the reduction targets were too low and the ­policy was too generous to ­emissions-intensive industries.

“Yet two years later, the Greens voted in favour of Labor’s Clean Energy Future package, which had the same 2020 emissions targets as the CPRS and vastly more generous assistance for emissions-intensive industry,” Mr Conroy will say.

He will also admit there was “no denying” Labor made mistakes in its attempts to implement a price on carbon.

“We should have gone to a double-dissolution election in 2010,” he will say.

Greens climate change spokesman Adam Bandt said Labor “spends a lot of time inventing alternative histories”.

“The only time pollution fell in this country was when Greens, Labor and independents worked together in a shared-power parliament,” Mr Bandt said.

“If Labor’s terrible policy had passed, there’s every likelihood Tony Abbott’s ‘axe the tax’ campaign would just have been brought forward three years and the 2013 election would have happened in 2010.”